Customer Reviews

Take China: The Last of the China Marines

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I went to Tsingtao as a 17 year old Marine PFC in June '47 and lived through many of the events that were brought out in the book. Walking my post at the docks in the freezing cold, handing over my almost empty food tray to Chinese workers so they could scrape off the remains into an old coffee can (and being labled a "gook lover" by some of my fellow Marines for doing so), going through the barren countryside to the Lao Shan mountains, spending time in Peiping just before it fell to the communists. Stayed until we withdrew from the Marine compound to go aboard ships in February 1949. The book was factual in many areas, but I realized it was more of a novel with the addition of the personal relationships with the bar girls. I recall that, even though we became attached to the girls, very few Marines took them seriously, and I don't recall anybody getting as much liberty as the writer. I came across words that I hadn't heard in 55 years and it was a worthwhile nostalgic trip back in time.

I really enjoyed this book. It was a fast read and seemed historically accurate. Although I was looking for something non-fiction on this subject. There really isn't anything on this questionable period in the history of our US Marines. The book did confirm some of the facts that I had been looking for. But since the book is considered "fiction," I would not consider it a primary source for research.

All in all, a good read.

This is the 3rd novel I have read on Marines in China during post WW2. I was there for 3 months in Tientsin & Peking making a total of 35 months in the Pacific while fighting the battles of WW2. It's a very definitive novel of the Marines and their Navy Corpsmen who served in the Pacific and in China. It tells of the struggles a Marine and his beautiful Chinese wife had with the Chinese & Russian Communists. I purchased this item at Amazon where I have purchased many other excellent books.

"We were not loading ships to go home; we were going to China to repatriate the Japanese forces. That was the reason they gave, but there were other factors at hand which they didn't tell us. These we would find out for ourselves later. All we knew now was that we were going to a foreign land we hardly knew existed, nor did we know exactly why we were going. We made no decisions, and controlled no destinies, not even our own. We were told to pack our gear, and to load the ships. That was all we knew."

Harold Stephens has dedicated this book to the men of the 29th Marines Sixth Marine Division. He served with them at the Battle of Okinawa and during the occupation in China, as China Marines.

What happened between October 15, 1945 and May 1949 is the story of the last of the China Marines.

Harold Stephens is a brilliant writer who captures place, time and situation all in the first few pages. You are instantly drawn into this story. He is famous for his travel writing.

In this book he gives vivid descriptions of his time on ships and tells of times when they were caught in storms for sixteen endless hours. His descriptions of the bathhouse are amusing. Then there are always the mechanics of eating with chopsticks.

Harold Stephens also presents brief descriptions of the horrors of war. The sheer brutality of the rapes and treatment of women is shocking, even when you know how evil humans can be.

He balances the book with stories of love and at times the price of love in foreign countries.

~The Rebecca Review